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Originally Posted by getbak
The Blues to Saskatoon thing had nothing to do with an arena in St Louis (just like the Flames move to Calgary or Thrashers move to Winnipeg weren't about new arenas). The former owner wanted to sell and couldn't find anyone locally who wanted to own an NHL team, so they made a deal to sell the team to Canadian investors. The league prevented the move, which squashed the sale, and eventually the league took over the team and sold to ownership who agreed to keep the team in St Louis. https://www.stlouisgametime.com/2009...lues-the-story The new arena in St Louis came a full decade after the Saskatoon thing was settled. |
Sorry, you're right. I confused the two stories.
There was the Saskatoon relocation which was rejected and the 1985 relocation threat.
From the arena website itself:
http://www.scottradecenter.com/about-us
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In 1985, the then-owner of the St. Louis Blues hockey team contemplated relocating the team out of St. Louis. The pending move prompted members of the St. Louis business community to formulate a plan to purchase the Blues and keep the club in St. Louis. In 1990, however, it became evident that the long-term viability of the Blues required building a new hockey arena, one in which there was common ownership between the team and the facility.
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As for Flames out of Atlanta, even that was in part due to the arena - of course more financially:
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"Then Nelson Skalbania offered him $16 million so they could move the team to Calgary," Fletcher said. "It was the biggest price for an NHL team to that time. I was very disappointed about leaving Atlanta. Personally, they were some of the best years of my life. The unfortunate thing was the Omni was out-of-date when it opened. It was a great building in which to watch hockey and the atmosphere was second to none in the NHL, but it had only 15,000 seats, no standing room and no private boxes. It was the second-to-last arena of its type to be built in North America.
"Sports franchises realized how much they were leaving on the table without private suites, restaurants and extra clubs, revenues necessary to be competitive. Atlanta was behind the eight-ball before it started. We were also the only market getting more money for our radio rights than TV. The fan support was good but the team was sold for a very big price."
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